_________________ WANTAGH ________________
HERALD GIFT and DINING GUIDE November 25, 2021
$1.00
Inside: Best of the holiday season
Vol. 69 No. 48
Animal shelter obtains grant
Drug bust, arrest in Wantagh
Page 3
Page 14
NoVEMBER 25 - DECEMBER 1, 2021
Protesting school vaccine mandates By KATE NAlEPINSKI knalepinski@liherald.com
Kate Nalepinski/Herald
ShoES WERE lINED up outside Wantagh High School on Nov. 18, part of a statewide movement called Operation Shoe Drop. The Wantagh drop-off took place prior to a Board of Education meeting.
“Fight for my mommy’s right to choose!” one sign read. “We love our freedom of choice,” another stated. “Families should NOT have to choose between public school and the shot,” another read. These statements were emblazoned on some of the many signs outside Wantagh High School and Seaford Manor School on Nov. 18, when district parents and children spread more than 70 pairs of children’s shoes around school
grounds to make a statement about potential Covid-19 vaccine mandates in schools. More than 50 districts on Long Island — and many others across the state — took part in Operation Shoe Drop last week, the movement’s founder, Kimberly Boyette, of Merrick, told the Herald. The shoes served as a visual representation of the children who may be pulled out of school in the event that the vaccines are made mandatory. A new bill in the State Assembly would mandate immunization for attendance Continued on page 4
Nonprofit MOMMAS House celebrates 35th anniversary By KATE NAlEPINSKI knalepinski@liherald.com
In 1984, social worker Pat Shea was working to find housing for a young homeless woman through the Wantagh-based Birthright of Nassau/Suffolk, which helped women facing unplanned or crisis pregnancies. Though the woman had four siblings, she knew none of them, having been placed in a separate foster care facility. Around the time she was aging out of foster care, she became pregnant, and struggled to find housing. “There were no foster homes for mothers with babies,” Shea, who lived in Massapequa at the
time, explained. “The mother could go into one foster home and the child would go to another, due to licensing.” The woman managed to find a place for her and her baby to stay, but the conditions were deplorable, Shea said: The home was filthy, there was no hot water, and nine men lived there with her, most of whom had been discharged from mental institutions or were drug addicts or alcoholics. “It was the worst situation I have ever seen,” Shea recalled. “I didn’t believe in Nassau County we could have such horrible conditions for a mother and baby to live in.” She invited the woman to stay
in her Massapequa home, but she refused. A few weeks later, the woman asked Shea to watch her child when she went to the doctor. Shea agreed. “She brought him over and she never came back,” Shea said. “I never saw her again. She abandoned her baby because she had no place to live that was decent.” Though the situation was difficult, it was the beginning of Shea’s journey to provide housing and support services to young mothers and their babies — a major goal of the Wantaghbased nonprofit Mommas House. Shea, her brother, John Connell, volunteers for Birthright of
Nassau/Suffolk and friends and family established the first MOMMAS House in Wantagh in 1986. The only program of its kind in the metropolitan area, it provided a safe place for pregnant women and young mothers, ages 18 to 24, and their babies. “It grew from that,” She said. “The need existed.” Last week, the organization
celebrated its 35th anniversary — and recently also celebrated assisting more than 1,000 mothers and babies across Nassau County. The group offers transitional housing, emergency shelter and permanent-housing services. It has four Mother-Child Transitional Housing Residences, one Continued on page 11